Art & Entertainment

Cash Down, But The Paint's Still Wet

A Bikash Bhattacharjee fake, record prices...Neville Tuli-organised auctions have it all

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Cash Down, But The Paint's Still Wet
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Tuli was born in England but returned to India to create the country’s first auction house, Osian’s, in 2000. Its efforts to promote the work of young artists, and the archival material collected on Hindi cinema have earned it a great deal of acclaim. Osian’s also established India’s first Authentication, Certification and Validation Council for Indian Modern Art, which aims to cut down sales of fraudulent works—but this only makes Tuli’s current predicament even spicier.

And it’s not like his name hasn’t cropped up in similar controversies before. Some of India’s biggest artists, like Vivan Sundaram and Gulammohammad Sheikh, launched an e-mail campaign before an Osian’s auction in 2005 to stop at least three ‘fake’ works from going under the hammer. Two of those works were successfully auctioned off then.

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One buyer not complaining after the recent auction was SUN Group chairman Nand Khemka, who shelled out Rs 6.9 crore for Village Scene. The painting had been sold at a Sotheby’s auction in Delhi in 1992 for Rs 11 lakh to a Delhi collector, who later sold it to a Chennai-based enthusiast. Khemka is from one of India’s wealthiest families, with links to the royal families of Nabha and Gwalior. Much of his business is based in Russia where he has invested heavily in the food processing, technology and gas processing sectors. Khemka has been trying to boost his profile in India and last year nearly bought a sprawling property in the heart of Lutyens’ Delhi for Rs 150 crore. The deal fell through but he’s still on the lookout for an appropriately grand mansion in which to hang the Sher-Gil.

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